The Fall
by Lynne the Canuck
Summary: UPDATE: February 2008 - Tweeked chapter 4 for better flow. Added some details. Originally published: November 2007. . How can your relationship with life be reinvented, when your only companion is an open chasm?
1. Liken a Razor

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by Jonathan Larson. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of the fans of the musical theatre work "Rent" and its 2005 movie adaptation, and is not intended to garner payment in any form.

I only rent. I don't own.

RATED: T, for language and post-suicide of a character.

_**The Fall**_

**Prologue**

_Waste, the supple leaves whither and fall _

_The warm breeze grows cold and starts to bite _

_Waste, tender beats hitch and stall _

_So tired and loosing this fight _

_Nothing can grow, just decompose_

_Deaf to harmony, decompose_

_-------------------------------------------------_

**Chapter 1: **_**Liken a Razor**_

From what he's told me about them, Roger turned into a mixture of his parents: a co-dependant and a control freak. I tried to point this out to him but, not surprisingly, he didn't want to hear it. After screaming at each other, he would finally leave me to cool off in his bedroom. These fights got so exhausting, that I just stopped trying to help him.

Roger's behaviour was tolerable, because it was a very subtle form of abuse, and I have only come to realize this in the last few days before I finally asked Collins for help. It is a form of abuse that has taken me over a decade to recognize. I didn't think I was that dense; but, then again, I was too close to the subject matter this time to realize that I was experiencing it from someone my own age. Maybe, it didn't exist in him, before the trauma.

However, I have made some very heavy and considerable analysis about whether or not I could possibly continue as his friend, roommate, brother … whatever we are to each other. It had reached the point where one of us would have to leave. In a way, I kept hoping that Roger would take the initiative; but, either we were too tired and afraid of any more changes, or we two halves of the same person.

I keep thinking about one of the things that Collins use to go around quoting all the time, especially after he ate the last of whatever food I was hungry for. "Time," he'd say with a mouthful of what should have been satisfying my stomach, "yields no shape".

After the first two or three times he threw this diversion at me, I finally got my brain working enough to ask him how that quote related to my deprived taste buds. "It's Kant," he said, while holding up a hand to my slackened mouth. "But, I Kant think of puns while I'm eating."

He scooped up the eight crumbs with a wink. Yes, I admit I had counted them. "And then he did the same thing to the other artists' houses, leaving crumbs much too small for the other artists' mouses."

Collins stared at me for a moment or two, before bursting out laughing, clapping a hand on my shoulder. "Mark, you're the only one I know who's countered Kant with Dr. Seuss". Actually, I didn't know anything about Kant. I just wanted the crumbs.

He finally did get around to telling me what that quote meant, and I've thought about it a lot since then. Time, he told me, is not linear nor circular. Rather, it's a form of consciousness. "Now, if something that rules our modern society as much as profits do can be stripped of its costume; so can anything else - including the availability of one of your favourite foods." I couldn't stop the grin that appeared when, out of the colossal chasm of his pocket, he produced a kumquat muffin.

His knowledge about what the world's great minds had to say about the transitory nature of things is amazing. I think that the nature of HIV deepened his interest in that topic. Collins told me that he has generally had an easy-going attitude; but, I think it was helped by Heidegger.

I didn't know him before his diagnosis, and I think I'm more anxious about his health than he is, but I am so grateful for his friendship.

When Collins arrived from Massachesetts, I left for a break from the shadows that anchored Roger to one moment in time. I don't know how Collins got through to him but, when I returned to the loft, Roger seemed calmer. There was really only one other way for him to go, and idly waiting for death was as great a tragedy as April's time wrecking obsessions.

I couldn't help being reminded of "Day of the Dead", the few times in the last year that I showed up on April's doorstep. The last time I saw her and Roger together, they looked so much like animated corpses that I couldn't stand being around them anymore.

I was so sure that their deserted existence had ended, that when that desperate plea for help came, it took me a while to realize whom it was who called me.

--------------------------------

_I finally realized that underneath the waves are rolling  
I cover my eyes, and whisper in your ear  
You make all the rain explode and pour the thunder on the faceless  
I'm holding my own in the face of you_

-- Adam Pascal (2004)

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Chapter 1 of 4

(c)2007, by: Lynne Freels


	2. The Final Cut

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by Jonathan Larson. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of the fans of the musical theatre work "Rent" and its 2005 movie adaptation, and is not intended to garner payment in any form.

I only rent. I don't own.

RATED: T, for language and post-suicide of a character.

_**The FALL**_

_Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes  
I can barely define the shape of this moment in time  
And far from flying high in clear blue skies  
I'm spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide._

_And if I show you my dark side  
Will you still hold me tonight?  
And if I open my heart to you  
And show you my weak side  
What would you do?_

-- Pink Floyd (1983)

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**Chapter 2: **_**The Final Cut**_

"FUCK!!"

Oh, no, no, no. This isn't real. This isn't real! Oh, please, no! This isn't HAPPENING!

Please … no … Can't breathe, can't … Can't fucking BREATHE!!!

CALM!! Take slow … slow …slowGODDAMNED … BREATHS!!

Oh, god …I don't feel well. My stomach hurts. I'm going to be sick! Oh, god. I'm going to be sick!

The lid. She demanded that I put the toilet lid down, and ranted when I forgot. I guess it doesn't matter, now.

How can one person have this much blood? Sticky, shiny red against white porcelain … White. Porcelain. Skin. Oh, god. Her dead, porcelain skin. She doesn't look real.

SOMEONE! PLEASE! HELP ME!

I can't look at her face, again … her open eyes. God her eyes! There was no light in them. When you look into a person's eyes, you can see an incredible depth, and can fall into them.

If I fell into her eyes, now, I could never climb out.

I think I'm going to be sick, again. Dry heaves, of course. There's nothing left.

We spend what little I earn, from when I can even get a gig, on whoever had the means to let me break out of the prison of my own making.

Beyond life's substance that constricts and contracts -- contracts disease.

Death. AIDS.

• Acquired means you can get infected with it.  
• Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body's system that fights diseases.  
• Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease.

WE'RE TOO YOUNG!! I haven't done anything, yet! It's only been about me; what I like; what pleases me right now. All that philanthropic stuff is supposed to come to me when I know who the fuck I am.

And, when would that be? Shit, I don't know. I can't think.

What about 'that' for all of the tomorrows that won't ever come? Everything just stopped. We both have stopped time. It will only ever be this day.

It's so cold.  
It's empty.  
Oh, April.

Move, Roger. You have to get help. Just concentrate on repeating music scales, and nothing else. Start with the harmonic minors, hexatonic. That's it. Move, now, into a descending melodic major.

Stand up. Why won't my legs work?

Don't look at her.  
Don't look at her.  
Don't look at her!

I can't do this. "SPEAK!" I moved out last Fall; so, why hasn't he changed that stupid answering machine message?

I can't believe it's already been a year since I heard the daily noise from his camera. I can't even remember what I did in that time, let alone measure it for anything, other than waste.

"Mark," from the abyss, she has her hooks in me. Pulling. Pulling. "Please, help me!"

I don't think I cut the connection. Disconnected, I just lie there, curled up into a ball on the floor – as lifeless as my love.

Only, now.

Only … only, _this_.

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Chapter 2 of 4

(c)2007, by: Lynne Freels


	3. Cold Turkey

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by Jonathan Larson. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of the fans of the musical theatre work "Rent" and its 2005 movie adaptation, and is not intended to garner payment in any form.

I only rent. I don't own.

RATED: T, for language and post-suicide of a character.

_**The FALL**_

_Thirty-six hours  
Rolling in pain  
Praying to someone  
Free me again  
Oh I'll be a good boy  
Please make me well  
I promise you anything  
Get me out of this hell_

-- John Lennon (1969)

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**Chapter 3: **_**Cold Turkey**_

Roger plopped unceremoniously onto a stool, waiting to rebalance himself on its uneven legs.

Mark placed the steaming cup of coffee in front of his troubled roommate, who gingerly encircled the hot cup with his cold hands. "I heard you cry out last night. How'd you sleep?"

"Not good," Roger responded, feeling his fingers beginning to thaw. "My legs cramped up and it was freezing, again."

"It helps to wear layers, and nothing cotton next to your skin," Mark offered, relishing the warm path that followed his sips of coffee. "I sometimes wear my coat, and dump what laundry I have on top of my sleeping bag – anything for insulation."

That sixteen year-old relic from the family camping vacations had ended up being a life-saver on those cold Northeastern nights when, more often than not, the heat was shut off. Mark could understand the bitter economics behind the reasons for denial of utilities for the squatters, who largely inhabited the decomposing building. At the same time, it was difficult for him to shake the feeling of being betrayed by his former roommate/current landlord.

"Layering isn't working." Abruptly, Roger stood and started pacing. "I'm fucking cold!"

Mark watched him walk quickly to the bedroom, grab his coat off the bed and, using every explicative Roger knew to describe his struggle with the zipper, finally gave up in frustration. "I need a smoke."

Fishing around in one of the tiny kitchen's cupboards, Mark found matches, and sighed before joining his friend on the fire escape. "Here," he said as he lit the cigarette. Roger nodded his thanks, and inhaled deeply.

The doctor had warned Mark that he could expect his friend to try to cope with the symptoms of heroin withdrawal by using other drugs. Mark figured that, if Roger could beat the huge odds stacked against him and learn to live again, he wasn't going to complain about the slight calming effect that tobacco seemed to provide.

He'd been given a horrifying list of possible symptoms that Roger might experience, dependant upon the amount junk he regularly took, the type and amount of adulterants in his hits, his tolerance level, and even the location where he last chose to shoot up.

However, more than the fevers, vomiting, and muscle pain, was his bizarre complaint that his blood was itchy. Roger couldn't better explain the irritating sensation, and had responded to it by scratching himself enough to cause bruises and scabs over most of his body. The last thing Roger needed was a skin infection, especially now that April's suicide note had condemned him to fragility.

"We've got AIDS." God. There was another horrifying list of possible symptoms.

Yet, even when it seemed that all options for living were stripped away, Roger was intent on enduring this physical and emotional hell. He chose life.

Despite his state, he had the will to heal. That alone, Mark thought, was invaluable. It revealed an undeniable dignity, emerging from beneath the shallow persona that, in the end, had not protected his best friend from the pain he so feared.

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Chapter 3 of 4

(c)2007, by: Lynne Freels


	4. Someone Saved My Life Tonight

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by Jonathan Larson. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of the fans of the musical theatre work "Rent" and its 2005 movie adaptation, and is not intended to garner payment in any form.

I only rent. I don't own.

RATED: T, for language and post-suicide of a character.

_**The Fall**_

_I never realized the passing hours of evening showers_

_A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams …_

_Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive …_

_Sweet freedom whispered in my ear_

_You're a butterfly_

_And butterflies are free to fly_

_Fly away, high away, bye bye_

-- Elton John (1975)

**Chapter 4: **_**Someone Saved My Life Tonight**_

"One candle can light thousands more, and the life of that candle will not be shortened," Collins said, and pinched candle flicker into oblivion.

The writhing flames intoxicated him, and Roger – weakened by the wreckage of his life -- could not stop himself from being pulled into their song.

Collins saw, and recognized, that expression. He had seen the same thing in the mirror of his own diagnosis. Surveying the sea of flickering wax, he commented, "You use to write songs that beautifully described love as one of the few things in life that lasted forever."

"Yeah, the key reference there is 'use to'. I haven't been able to find that spark, since April."

The only way that he could relate to the extensive damage caused by the violent severance of young lovers, was to recall the loss of his beloved grandmother. Collins could only relate to this type of loss, philosophically. He hoped that was enough.

"Give it time. You're just switching muses, right now. In any case, compositional ability is not the key reference I was intending. All our experiences -- love, friendship, jobs, living in the penthouse or living from the trash behind it -- are processes toward growth," and he tapped on Roger's head for emphasis, "up here. It's all transitory, never permanent."

Although he batted the hand away, Roger continued to gaze at the candles, avoiding direct contact. "Death seems pretty permanent, to me."

A curious expression manipulated Roger's facial features – one that unnerved Collins. "Look," he said, desperately, "The death of people you care about will take on a life of its own. If you mean your own death, well, you either will transform onto another plane of existence, or be met with oblivion. Either way, it won't matter to you, after it happens."

"This …" Roger began; but halted as his eyes shifted to search the dusty floor for help. Instead, he shifted, trying to divert the painful conversation that, he conceded, was coming. "You can sit down now. It's light enough in here that the roaches are hiding." The smile never reached his eyes.

Thomas Collins sat next to his desperate friend, and reached for his hand in consolation. "You interrupted yourself."

Roger needed to be retrieved and reinvented, more than he needed to be revived. Still focusing inward, Roger vainly tried to give a voice to the impossible. Why did he continue to eat, continue to breathe? There was no purpose in just existing, holding only as much significance as the couch they sat on.

In the last couple of weeks, Roger's love for April had illuminated the void that separated them. When he dreamed, he could hear her tender messages. "She was stronger than me. I don't want this disease to … to," and Roger swiped the unannounced tears from his face.

He did not condemn April for being brave enough to meet death on her terms. Indeed, Roger admired his lover for her courage. Given a condemnation of an indignant end, with diapers and feeding tubes, he yearned for the strength to follow her example of besting this death sentence.

"I don't know how I can survive without her," he whispered.

"I know you loved April, Roger", Collins began, "but the course that she chose for her life is hers, alone. You have to find your own path, or you'll only be living someone else's."

This was new territory that the anti-establishment professor was wont to tread. If Collins did not set his foot on the right path, his chosen course could very well inflict his friend's fatal wound.

Roger remained in the anguish of April's clutch – a small grimace darkening his features. He easily recalled the feeling of being at peace, empathetic, and calm.

Heroin offered this. It was the only sure relief he found from being scared, victimized, angry, and sick, sick, sick, sick, sick!

He needed a hit, right now. It would give him warmth, happiness, and a sustaining euphoria. It had given him forgiveness, peace, and increased his love of music. Trembling, he collapsed against Collins' chest.

Frightened at what he saw, Collins ventured, "The Buddha said …"

"Wait," Roger moaned. "I had to work at being a heroin addict."

This was unexpected, and Collins remained silent until Roger was able to continue. "I wanted to fight back at everything that I thought was against me. I guess moving to the city, and the whole sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll thing was my way of saying 'fuck you'."

Collins continued to try to sooth his troubled friend, but he would not help him by coddling. "It sounds more like you were escaping, than protesting. You're a smart guy, Roger, and you know that your choice to live like that was self-destructive."

As he stroked Roger's hair, he maintained his determination not to judge him for any failing. How could he, when he escaped into the rhetoric of Renaissance philosophers. Coping with devastation was, he now realized, something at which he was limitedly adept.

"Why were you punishing yourself?"

Roger got up and walked to the window. "Because I hate myself, and I can't live with that hate." He shivered as the air that slithered through the cracks embraced and penetrated him.

"Heroin withdrawal was not as bad as Mark probably reported," he heard himself saying. "There were times that I was sick, but it wasn't anything more than what you'd feel with a bad case of the flu."

Why was he saying this? Whom was he trying to protect?

Roger had tossed out blankets, clothes, his guitar, spare strings, and even his picks - anything that could provide access to the same solution that April chose – into the loft's common area, and had Mark barricade him in his room for three days while he went insane.

Mark had given him water and two garbage cans so that, if he made it to sobriety, he could still use the room. "No matter what you hear," Roger instructed, "do not open that door until Monday." He had shot up that morning, just so he was able to clean up what was left of his lover: there was no way in hell he would risk his friend's life for his mistakes.

As the city pulled its infestation with it into night, Roger curled onto his bare mattress – already in pain, sweat drenched with a battering heart -- and listened to the something heavy rasping its way towards his door.

There were times in those hellish days that death itself had seemed more inviting than living through the nightmare of withdrawal; but if he didn't change, his friends, and everyone else in the whole fucking country, would turn their backs on him.

He didn't want to end up living or dying in a private hell, alone.

Shame and anxiety forced him to continue the lie.

Collins closed the distance. "I think that what I felt was more of a reaction to April's …" Roger paused to confirm, "... suicide and my death sentence, than it was the actual physical withdrawal symptoms."

As Collins placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, Roger turned finally to look into his friend's eyes. "I needed someone to show me that I wasn't a complete fuck-up, and Mark's fussing over me helped. Please, don't tell him."

"I won't," Collins said. "And you're not a fuck-up. I wouldn't be here if I thought you were. While I understand why you did it, you know now that stoned seclusion isn't the solution."

He recalled the horrifying images from the last time he went home. Colour just drained away from everything, until all that remained was the ugliness of gang tags against all the greys: a ghetto wasteland. It was no wonder the shadows that remained ached for powdered oblivion.

A quiet sigh escaped his lips, "I'm saddened that the reality of your existence beat the hell out of you; but, at least now you're free to start thinking constructively about where you want life to take you."

The musician with so much potential was trapped on the other side of his mind's wall. There were no cracks that would allow contact. "I don't know what to do, and I can't go back home with my tail between my legs."

Starting to pace, Roger couldn't hold in his agitation. Maybe the silence from the loss of his one comfort and release had cost him his sanity. Maybe Collins was a by-product of his delusions, and he actually was at M.I.T., in the middle of a lecture.

"Ow!" Roger complained, rubbing his arm. "Why did you punch me?"

"Convinced, now, that I'm really here?" Grunting, he had to admit that that was irrefutable evidence.

Feeling weak, Roger returned to the couch, letting his head fall into his hands. "I'm so tired all the time, you know? And I hate being this vulnerable and out of control."

"Look, you are in charge of your life, no one else – not your parents, not your band, not April, and," Collins tipped the scruffy chin up, meeting the faded green eyes with a solid assurance, "not AIDS".

Smiling, he continued, "Tomorrow may never come. Today is special, because you exist." It was plain to see that Roger's wall was an extreme form of self-protection; but, without it, he would have found April's razor.

"No one is judging you, my friend. Get outside this prison and walk among the people out there, and you'll see."

Too much had been buried in the coffin with her. "I can't. Not now."

Collins studied the drug-emaciated frame and sickly pale countenance. There was no trace of the confident, cocky, stage persona. "You've got to take control. Start loving yourself, for a change." Collins held no delusions that he could solve the series of crises that sickened his friend, as surely as their shared disease would do.

Roger was little more than a ghost, rattling the chains of his failures to an empty venue. "I'm not ever going to be well, but thanks for being here with me."

No one remained unchanged by experience. Time spent in pain was also time of transition. "The Buddha said, 'most of us are not willing to face the reality of impermanence and death," he began. "That's because we forget that life, and everything in it – everything we've done - is transitory."

"I'll still be listening, even when I start to snore." This, Collins recognized, was Roger's signal to drop the subject.

"Butt!" Collins announced, as he snaked his hand between the cushion and Roger's ass. He only managed one squeeze, before Roger rocketed off the couch, yelping in protest.

Chuckling and encouraged, Collins continued as Roger moved to a chair. "'But, if we face the fact of death, our quarrels will end. Excited emotions cloud our thoughts, and we cannot see the truth about life. When we see the truth, however, our thoughts become free of emotions.' The end --"

"Finally! I thought I'd have to suffer through another of your marathon lectures."

Slyly, Collins mimed a squeezing action. "-- And what a firm little end it is! You need to wear tighter jeans, man. Mmm, mmm, mmm!"

Roger rolled his eyes. "How about we order in some pizza, instead? You're buying." This time, the small smile that lit his face also reached his eyes.

He was certainly not accepting, yet; but at least he was at a point where he could finally begin to uncurl from that ball of pain on April's floor.

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Chapter 4 of 4

(c) 2008, by: Lynne Freels


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